Why I never started a restaurant after winning MasterChef South Africa
Why did you not start a restaurant after winning MasterChef?
This is probably one of the question I get asked most often. I started my Instagram account The Roasted Dad during the Covid-19 lockdown. After winning MasterChef South Africa, The Roasted Dad became more than just a passion project. I became more serious about food and cooking. I started running events, from cook-with-me demos, to pop-up restaurants, restaurant takeovers, and food and wine pairings. I designed a menu to be enjoyed onboard LIFT Airlines.
But I never started a restaurant.
Entrepreneurship vs a Creative Outlet
I am an entrepreneur at heart. I love running profitable businesses. But food is different. Food is not about making money. It is my creative outlet. It is where I can focus on excellence, even if it economically may seem like it doesn’t make sense. You can taste the difference, so it makes sense to me. Food is a craft.
In my journey after MasterChef, designing recipes and cooking new dishes, I have become passionate about heroeing local, South African ingredients, whilst experimenting with cooking methods from across the globe.
Some of my Recipes
I enjoy sharing my recipes through my Instagram page and on my website. If you try any of my recipes, please let me know!
About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
Sign up to the newsletter below to be kept up to date with events, new recipes and reviews, or contact Shawn to chat about recipe creation, restaurant takeovers and public speaking events.
